If PP wants to secure its access to state money, it merely needs to bifurcate its abortionizing (to coin a term) from health care services such as pregnancy testing and STD screening, etc. But it won’t, so some states are trying to exclude PP from Medicaid payments. on the theory that since currency is fungible, such payments indirectly support abortion—even though Medicaid doesn’t pay for the procedure thanks to the Hyde Amendment.
Indiana tried, and got shot down (so far) by a federal judge because the state accepts federal money. But Texas can cut off funds—at least for now, because the Feds pulled its money out. From the LA Times story:
The clinics receive funding through the Texas Women’s Health Program, or WHP, run with $5 million in state money and $35 million from the federal government. But federal officials withdrew their contribution earlier this year when the state moved to exclude Planned Parenthood clinics.
On Tuesday, the three-judge panel ruled that Texas can restrict state funding, citing the affiliation of the clinics as promoting abortion. “Texas’ authority to directly regulate the content of its own program necessarily includes the power to limit the identifying marks that program grantees are authorized to use. Identifying marks represent messages,” the judges wrote. “If the organizations participating in the WHP are authorized to use marks associated with the pro-abortion point of view—like the Planned Parenthood mark—Texas’ choice to disfavor abortion is eviscerated, just as it would be if the organizations promoted abortion through pamphlets or video presentations.”
If this sticks, it is a very big deal and provides a way forward for other states.
Correctives are available to both PP and Obama’s HHS if they want the group to regain eligibility for Texas medical funding. But doing so would create huge cracks in the foundation of abortion-industrial complex, so don’t look for either to budge.
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